More Than 80,000 Held by US Since 9/11 Attacks

November 18, 2005
The Guardian
More Than 80,000 Held by US Since 9/11 Attacks

by Suzanne Goldenberg
The US has detained more than 80,000 people in facilities from Afghanistan to Cuba since the attacks on the World Trade Centre four years ago, the Pentagon said yesterday. The disclosure comes at a time of growing unease about Washington's treatment of prisoners in its "war on terror" and Europe's unknowing help in the CIA's practice of rendition.
The Bush administration has defended the detentions from criticism by human rights organisations, saying the interrogation of suspected militants has been crucial in its attempt to dismantle terror networks. At least 14,500 people are in US custody in connection with the war on terror, Pentagon officials in Washington and Baghdad said yesterday. Some 13,814 people are being held in Iraq and there are approximately 500 at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
But it was an even less visible aspect of America's detention policy that was causing a furore in European capitals yesterday: the CIA practice of rendering terror suspects for interrogation to secret prisons in third countries. Washington faced mounting pressure yesterday to respond to reports of secret landings by private jets used by the CIA to transport terror suspects in at least six countries. . . .
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Joe W. (Chip) Pitts III, "Tough Patriot Act Followed by 40 Nations," Washington Post, September 14, 2003
"CIA renditions of terror suspects are 'out of control'," AFP, February 06, 2005
VIDEO: Bronwyn Adcock, "The Italian Job," Dateline (Australia), November 9, 2005
Dana Priest, "Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight: Joint Facilities in Two Dozen Countries Account for Bulk of Agency's Post-9/11 Successes," Washington Post, November 18, 2005
Editorial: "Um, About That Dirty Bomb?," New York Times, November 23, 2005
Tracy Wilkinson, "Europe in Uproar Over CIA Operations," latimes.com, November 26, 2005
[Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations. --Dana Priest, "Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake," Washington Post, December 4, 2005]
[The case marks the first time that a foreign government has filed criminal charges against U.S. operatives for their role in a counterterrorism mission.--Craig Whitlock, "CIA Ruse Is Said to Have Damaged Probe in Milan: Italy Allegedly Misled on Cleric's Abduction," Washington Post, December 6, 2005]
[. . . under this administration's eccentric definition of "U.S. obligations," cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is not prohibited as long as it does not occur on U.S. territory.--Editorial: "A Weak Defense," Washington Post, December 6, 2005]
[The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.--Douglas Jehl, "Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim," New York Times, December 9, 2005]
[Accounts from detainees at Guant‡namo reveal that the United States as recently as last year operated a secret prison in Afghanistan where detainees were subjected to torture and other mistreatment . . . U.S. and Afghan guards were not in uniform and that U.S. interrogators did not wear military attire, which suggests that the prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency.--"U.S. Operated Secret 'Dark Prison' in Kabul," Human Rights Watch, December 19, 2005]
"UN calls for Guantanamo closure," BBC News, February 16, 2006
[Made public in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Associated Press, the list comprises all the detainees processed at hearings under the so-called combatant status review tribunal at the Guantanamo between in July 2004 and January 2005.--David Usborne, "Pentagon releases names of 558 prisoners held at Guantanamo," Independent, April 21, 2006]
[Extraordinary renditions would breach European human rights legislation and British domestic law.--Richard Norton-Taylor, "1,000 secret CIA flights revealed," Guardian, April 27, 2006]
VIDEO: "U.S. Court Rules Wrongfully-Held Detainee Khaled El-Masri Can't Sue CIA For Kidnapping Him," democracynow.org, May 25, 2006
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[The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President George W. Bush lacks authority to try Guantanamo Bay inmates before military tribunals, a blow to the administration's anti-terrorism strategy that scales back executive wartime powers.--"U.S. Supreme Court Bars Bush's Military Tribunals," bloomberg.com, June 29, 2006]
Ian Austin, "Canadians Fault U.S. for Its Role in Torture Case," New York Times, September 18, 2006
Maher Arar, "A Personal Account: The Horrors of Extraordinary Rendition," counterpunch.org, October 27, 2006
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Suzanne Goldenberg, "Victim of US torture flights wins Ł4.5m in damages," Guardian, January 27, 2007